“Come, Doc. Help me find it.” He looked over at his brothers. “Need to find the kill switch.” He eyed Darc, standing with her weapon by her side. “You too.”
Eos didn’t have time to complain about the deadly hunter now being on their team. The sand was lapping at her knees.
“Everyone move to a different section of wall,” Dathan ordered. “Search for any irregularities, anything that doesn’t look right.”
Eos waded through the sand. A wall of carvings rose in front of her. The astro-archeologist in her wanted to touch the deep grooves, decipher the pictures, but survival was the better option right now.
There was a taut silence in the chamber, except for the gentle whoosh of sand. To her, it was a loud roar in her ears, worse than the sandstorm.
She imagined some other treasure hunter finding five mummified bodies here at some distant point in the future.
There was so much she hadn’t done. She spent all her time on digs, pouring over old records, living and breathing Star’s End. She pressed her palms to the rock, her gaze sliding to Dathan. To that strong, lean body, the tattoo twining around his arm, that too-long hair curling at his collar. There was so much more she wanted. Stupid to only realize that now. To know she’d thrown so much of her life away on the past and not realized how much of a future she could make with a man she loved.
And she did love him.
Completely.
By Suva. Bittersweet despair filled her, tears stinging her eyes.
Something moved under her palm.
She lifted her hand and stared. The carving was of a flag, covered in stripes and stars. One of the stars was a deep bronze metal. “I found something. A metallic star.”
The engraving on the timepiece came back to her. She fumbled in her pocket and yanked the timepiece out.Our greatest treasures rest beneath sanctuary, protected at the end of stars.Suva, the last part wasn’t a reference to Star’s End!
“Stars! Look for stars made of metal.” She pressed the star on the wall, and it moved.
“Got something.” Zayn was bent at waist level near the vault door, where the sand was now rising fast. “Looks like a carving of a constellation of some hunter guy. Metal star on his belt.”
“I’ve got another one,” Darc called out. She was on top of the sand, arm outstretched above her head. “Can’t quite reach it. Star inside a crescent moon.”
Niklas moved over and gripped her around the waist. He hefted her up, and her fingers brushed it.
“It’s metal.” Darc pressed it down.
How many more?Eos studied the chamber. “Look. Darc’s is directly across from me. Zayn’s is near the vault at ninety degrees to the others?—”
“Clever girl, Doc.” Dathan slogged through the sand to the spot directly across from the vault door. “Must be here somewhere.”
He searched fast, his hands skimming over the wall. Eos scanned the pale stone, searching for something darker and metallic.
“Dammit!” Dathan shoved his hands on his hips. “Nothing.”
Eos swallowed hard. It wasn’t there. She struggled against the sand now touching her waist. “Maybe there are only three?”
Dathan gave a curt nod. “Depress the stars together. On three.” He counted them down. “Three!”
The floor trembled again. A light coat of sand dislodged from the roof.
Then more sand began to fill the room in a faster rush.
“There has to be another one!” Dathan spun back to the wall. He shot Eos a look she didn’t understand and then he dived headfirst under the sand.
“Dathan!”
She watched the sand swallow him up. Fear was an acidic drip in her chest. She chewed on her lip, waiting for him to come back up.
Time slowed. She heard his brothers talking in frantic undertones as she waited for him to resurface.
